Immersions Archives - Page 24 of 31

Impressions: Good/Bad, First, Lasting

Impressions: one word, multiple meanings

Comedians aping celebrities: Jimmy Fallon does Trump
Vague notions: Haven’t we met?
Dental molds for inlays, nightguards, dentures (clamp jaws, breathe through nose longer than seems possible)

Alternatively, aren’t lasting, good impressions what we hope to leave after completing the job interview?

We want others to see us in the best light as we shake hands with the leader, the banker or pastor, the mentor or blind date.

Then there’s our significant other’s parents, met that first time . . .

Impressions can be fleeting. Perceptive. Flat-out wrong.

Lasting impressions

Yesterday we visited Fossil Butte National Monument: true lasting impressions.

Showcased under glass, at staggered depths, ancient plant fossils seem to float against dark wood. Smithsonian-worthy, the layout is masterful.

Painstaking work exposed each specimen from layers of rock. Equally rigorous science identified and classified them.

Scientific impressions

May I oversimplify?

Organisms + Habitat + Death x Time = Fossils

Organisms near a waterhole, inland sea, or lake sink into the mud.

Over time, weighty, accruing layers of sediment embed the organisms ever deeper. Water evaporates or moves on, the way water does.

Tissues disintegrate and minerals may penetrate the remains.

Tools for fossil removal

Wooden frames, for marking stone perimeters
Rock saws
Hammers, chisels, brushes
Adhesives
Pneumatic air scribes, picks and needles

Bet you can guess why I like the “air scribe.”

Back in the lab, technicians manipulate the air scribe, a tiny jackhammer, to painstakingly remove the remaining matrix and expose the fossil’s intricate detail.

Good impressions, humanly speaking

How do we make them? Leave them? Recover or rebuild them when things go amiss?

“Look for areas where you need to let go,” I read this morning.* This implies surrender. Leaving something behind.

Every leaf on that fossil wall eventually yielded to forces beyond itself. I find myself reviewing my human interactions on our trip, thus far. Have I left a lasting impression of kindness? Courtesy? Warmth?

I once reviewed a novel for a literary journal. My review’s title? “We Were Here, and We Loved.”

I combed the book for key lines, layers of meaning, and vivid images to support insights I’d gained from reading the story—a painstaking process, not unlike chiseling out fossils.

We Were Here, and We Loved: Isn’t this what we hope our lives, our work, our words communicate?

“Work is love made visible,” poet Kahlil Gibran wrote. Poet Emily Dickinson adds, we all “…dwell in possibility—A fairer House than Prose—”

Maybe there’s an unseen Air Scribe detailing our surrenders and endeavors. And a Curator, who preserves our stories.

Maybe there’s a gallery on the far side of today, and it exhibits the varied depth of our interactions with nature and people: Call it Hi-def, video-in-stone that angels or any celestial passerby can view.

The thought makes me smile. And bite my lip.

What kind of surrender is unfolding in you these days? Will you view your work as love poured out?

*Sarah Young, Jesus Calling, May 17.

Words in Edgewise, Growing “Edge Wise”

by Laurie Klein 15 Chiming In

Edgewise to the massive cliffs on either side of our RV, we nose through a misty canyon in Colorado.

Along the rim of a rocky cutaway, one valiant tree sports May’s latest green. Beyond its small canopy, ghostly aspen trunks mount the next slope: limbless, charred. Their music, silenced.

Fire once ravaged parts of this canyon. You could draw a v-shaped line where the flames stopped.

“Edge areas” between differing habitats are ecologically distinct. In the foreground above, lichens inch across stone. Sparse vegetation seeks footholds, hunkers edgewise between rocks.

In the ruined woods beyond, ground covers will vary now, as will returning wildlife.

The division appears stark, even hostile. Yet a strange serenity rules here, amidst devastation. There’s something compelling at play in this scene.

I’ve been dividing my evenings between several books, pulling out words and ideas from each and letting them converse in my head.

One book currently captivating me is God in the Yard: Spiritual Practice for the Rest of Us, by L. L. Barkat. She describes it as “a 12-week course in discovery and playing towards God.”

For someone who often overworks, the idea of playing towards God feels irresistible.

The right book in a ripe time offers gifts, unparalleled.

Published in 2010, this one reached me belatedly, and it’s searching and sifting my soul with each chapter I read.

An Edgewise Commitment

Barkat made an odd commitment after reading a book she found pivotal: Radical Simplicity, by Jim Merkel.

With her senses and soul open wide, for one year she spent time in her small backyard every day—no matter the weather—“to find some contentment and beauty” (p.5.).

Some days (and nights) she slotted in backyard dates edgewise: Fifteen minutes in falling snow or rain was all the time she could spare.

Just as the photo above suggests a heart-shaped area of destruction wedged between soaring walls of grandeur, so God in the Yard is gently ushering me between grief and recovery.

Pages nearly vibrate with unexpected observations. Paradoxes invite further exploration. Soul Questions are interspersed with scenes from the author’s life and readings. She invites the reader to fill in the blanks. For example:

When I was a child, I lived______________
Today I live________________________
If I could, I would return to_____________

My answers describe edges in my life: geographically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Yes, I long for earlier terrain (and people) no longer available
And yes, acceptance grows slowly at deeper levels
There are also actions I can take

Wisdom expands as I learn to honor new ways to thrive.

And you? (This is a question Barkat asks, again and again.)

Do you perceive a distinct edge for yourself? What change might you need to accept (or reject)? What one action can you take (or stop taking) to move you toward discovery and thriving?

God in the Yard: Spiritual Practice for the Rest of Us, L. L. Barkat, T.S. Poetry Press, 2010.

Note: “Words in Edgewise” is a title borrowed from a marvelous show created and directed by my mentor, Pat Stien.

Taking Turns, Taking It Slow

by Laurie Klein 22 Chiming In

Hairpin turns funnel our 30-foot RV downward today, through Idaho’s wild canyons.

Yours truly is not driving.

I am 93% Bilbo Baggins, a homebody who loves peace, quiet. Warm food.

Bilbo had to dig deep when the great Gandalf appeared and set him on a quest. But the little hobbit discovered derring-do within—latent “Took” qualities from his mother’s side of the family gene pool.

We’ve been traveling for ten days. Taking turns with the driving? Well, hoping to channel my inner Took, a week ago I “took” the wheel. Did I mention we’re also towing a station wagon?

I rollercoasted us up and down and around, again, and again, taking turns, taking it slow. To give Bill a break.

Longest. Hour. Ever.

And then the weather changed . . .

Today, from the passenger seat, my senses plunge into spring scenery.

Moraines left behind by ancient glaciers look wetly vibrant. Balsam Root Daisies carpet slopes, glowing patches of gray and chartreuse amid deeper greens.

Camera braced on a raised knee, I shoot through the open window. Colors abound!

I can almost hear Julie Andrews as Maria von Trapp (who definitely claimed her Took side) singing “The hills are alive with the sound of music.”

What inspired those lyrics? Perhaps, the canyons of Idaho.

Or Isaiah 55:12 (NIV):

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

What an ear-tingling promise for people who failed, so spectacularly often, to listen to God. People who clung to their comforts, idols and appetites.

Which sounds like me.

I wonder what today’s scenery might be broadcasting . . .

Married to a roamer, I get to regularly unearth my latent Tookishness. Took and Baggins, taking turns inside me. Is one better?

This world needs those who stir things up.

It also needs those who stir the soup,
and those who keep candles burning on window sills.

What will you stir up today? What’s stirring in you?

Own a Better View

by Laurie Klein 16 Chiming In

Beyond the bay window, night wanes.

God, behind the scenes, is producing this unused, never-before-seen, free-for-the-living day:

“Light, on your mark . . . good, very good . . . fade in sky and fields.”

(And to the mist) “Ready? Get rolling!”

own the new view — Mt. Spokane, pre-sunrise

For the first time in 25 years I clearly see Mt. Spokane from my place at our table. It rises, cool and distant, the stone-washed blue of rain over a lake.

Recently felled trees exposed this view, a vista I want to claim. Can a human own a view?

With the silent hoist of invisible pulleys, up comes the sun. I stroll up the driveway and witness washes of color altering landscape. I pass the fallen bodies of giants.

The news

Our trees are dying. In a word: beetles.

We sought advice from experts. Here’s who weighed in.

Spokane County Extension fire inspector
District 4 Fire Department
Department of National Resources
Thinning contractors

Restoring our woods will cost an arm and a leg—actually, unnumbered limbs. Trunks, too. Many exceed the jaws of the chipper, and debris must be burned ASAP, or trucked away, to avoid worse infestation. Survivors need to be thinned and lopped of dead growth, 12′ from the ground.

Trunk girths indicate no one has tended these woods. Nor have we. We’ve loved them but left them wild. Until now.

But the hours. The expense. The labor. It’s overwhelming.

And yet

I see the mountain. See it from the place I study and pray. Modest in size, it’s still a mountain.

My view through the gap left behind by death makes me think of Good Friday. And visions. Kernels of wheat. Who but God would conceive such a process—downfall and disease ushering in unforeseen beauty. Surprise.

Yes, we are facing loss. And cost. And something more.

Have you read this famous haiku by Mizuta Masahide?

Since my house burned down
I now own a better view
of the rising moon

Looking back, looking ahead

We moved here after re-affirming our marriage vows. Things had been crashing down around us and friends sensed our need, prayed us through the pain. We know about doing hard things.

Now it’s time again to “own a better view.” At least, metaphorically. Ancient Israel lost her great forests to marauding enemies. Yet scripture also describes the trees rejoicing.

We will care for our little forest. We’ll watch for each view that opens up, even as trees go down.

Some scientists now believe bark beetles can hear the sound of imploding tissue in drought-stressed trees. Native people have likely always known this, as evidenced by this quote from a Pueblo Indian elder.

The beetles come when the trees begin to cry.

Who, or what, in your life cries out for tending? Is there a new way to view this?

Mizuta Masahide (水田正秀, 1657–1723) was a Japanese poet and samurai. —Wikipedia

Keys to Reading a Poem

by Laurie Klein 18 Chiming In

How to begin

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
—e.e. cummings

April is National Poetry Month, also known as NaPoMo.

I am startled to realize God is still working today through a poem I wrote long before I suspected its deeper message for me. (Yes, it’s a poem from my new book, Where the Sky Opens.)

Poetry is layered. Sometimes hard to fathom. I want to show you a few ways to enter a poem.

Will you give me the chance? Promise me you’ll read to the end!

Are you nodding?

Okay, here’s a little secret. Look for the conflict.

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